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‘The Last Days Of Midgard’ continues to entertain and intrigue across two time-periods, and it’s proving to be very interesting watching Thor and Roz Solomon’s attempts to save the Earth when we know from the future scenes that they fail. I didn’t think the Past/Present/Future Thors idea would last beyond the opening storyline of this book, but Aaron is making it work spectacularly well.

We begin in the far far far-ass future, where Galactus is about to eat the now desolate Earth. Old King Thor sends his granddaughters away to Asgard, and flies up to confront the Eater Of Worlds. Thor tries to reason with Galactus, but the big purple guy is having none of it. Even a dead world like this will sate his hunger, and besides, he’s finally getting revenge on the one planet that stopped him time and again. I think you know what’s coming… FIIIIGHT! We don’t see much of this titanic tussle in this issue, but man, I can’t wait to see how it plays out, and man, Esad Ribic’s art makes it look like the most epic, Heavy Metal thing I have ever seen.

Back in the present, Thor and Roz are trying to figure out how to save the Earth from dying, and Thor’s even gone to the Library Of The Gods for research, to look at how other planets died. In the end, they decide to start with the corporations, and Thor flies up into the atmosphere to destroy an unmanned Roxxon facility that is incredibly toxic. He and Roz do this to several plants and facilities across the globe, and not just to Roxxon, but also to Alchemax and Yashida Corp. Because these attacks just look like lightning storms, they are seen as, quite literally, ‘Acts Of God’, and as such, Roxxon can’t make an insurance claim on them, this leads to their totally evil CEO Dario Agger to declare war on Thor. His first brainstorming session involves setting genetically modified bears on his employees, in what was an awesome scene. I love how there was actual detailed thought behind these modified bears, that they had been created to eat up all of the wild salmon in Canada, meaning that any salmon people wanted to eat had to come from Roxxon’s farms. The weirdness here is not just for the sake of it, this isn’t ‘sharks with frickin’ laser-beams on their heads’.

In the midst of seeing his people get mauled by bears, Agger has another ‘episode’, including a teasing flashback to some him being experimented on, and we get confirmation of what was hinted at last time… his ‘Minotaur’ nickname is no joke, he can transform into an actual Minotaur. Which is pretty cool. In the end, one of the Roxxon underlings does come up with a plan of attack against Thor. We don’t hear exactly what it is, but it involves Broxton, and we see a whole load of Roxxon trucks driving into town. Are they going to build a factory right under Asgardia? Or is it more overt than that? Either way, shots fired, and this battle is just getting started.

As I said, Esad Ribic’s artwork is still a perfect fit for this book, the action scenes look truly epic, and he can also handle the smaller stuff, like Thor and Roz just sitting in a diner having a conversation, and boy, he draws a mean Minotaur.